xabir wrote:Emptiness of person is the emptiness of a subjective self, agent (perceiver/controller/doer/thinker), soul, being, within or apart from the five aggregates. One sees that the framework that "a seer is seeing the seen" is delusional, I.e.in seeing always just the experience of the seen, colours, shapes and forms without a seer. One realizes that a subjective self is illusory.

Emptiness of phenomena means each of the five aggregates does not have objective existence. There is no formness in form, no substance of thought, etc. So they are appearing but empty, illusory like a magician's trick, like a mirage, a dream.

Here is an excerpt from a Buddhist glossary site on the definition of twofold Emptiness:

Two emptinesses (二空) include (1) emptiness of self, the ātman, the soul, in a person composed of the five aggregates, constantly changing with causes and conditions; and (2) emptiness of selves in all dharmas—each of the five aggregates, each of the twelve fields, and each of the eighteen spheres, as well as everything else with no independent existence. No-self in any dharma implies no-self in a person, but the latter is separated out in the first category. Realization of the emptiness of self in a person will lead to attainment of Arhatship or Pratyekabuddhahood. Bodhisattvas who have realized both emptinesses ascend to the First Ground on their Way to Buddhahood.

I can't argue, because I have already intuited that an arhat must be determined within emptiness. To go even further I think that it is because of the teaching that this is so. There is no reason to be stuck there, unless in absoluteness. The absoluteness has been deduced to a wrong view, from this perspective. The reason for that is the altering views and "phenomena" have yet to be realized to be able to conclude anything about everything or nothing.

teknix wrote:I was thinking of the the term Arhat, that is apparently an individual who accepts "Greed and Desire"?

hi teknix. what do you mean by this? i'm not getting it.

d

I mean that he accepts "Greed and Desire" as a part of "his" essential nature, like he is bound with it and unable to release that bond?

am i right in thinking you believe that the essential quality of an Arhat is that he "accepts Greed and Desire as part of his essential nature?

because....

"In Theravada Buddhism, it means anyone who has reached the total Awakening and attained Nirvana, including the Buddha. An arahant is a person who has destroyed greed, hatred, and delusion - the unwholesome roots which underlie all fetters - who upon decease will not be reborn in any world, having wholly cut off all fetters that bind a person to the samsara. In the Pali Canon, the word is sometimes used as a synonym for tathagata."

"In Theravada Buddhism the Buddha himself is first identified as an arahant, as are his enlightened followers, because they are free from all defilements, without greed, hatred, delusion, ignorance and craving, lacking "assets" which will lead to future birth, the arahant knows and sees the real here and now."

"Instead of aspiring for arhatship, Mahāyāna Buddhists are urged to instead take up the path of a bodhisattva, and to not fall back to the level of arhats and śrāvakas. Therefore, it is taught that an arhat must go on to become a bodhisattva eventually. If they fail to do so in the lifetime in which they reach the attainment, they will fall into a deep samādhi of emptiness, thence to be roused and taught the bodhisattva path, presumably when ready."

i include the last one to show that while Mahayana Buddhists regard the attainment of Arhat-ship as a stage, rather than an end, they don't define it any differently. so, as far as I can see, your definition of Arhat is totally set against Sravakayana and Mahayana Buddhism.

teknix wrote:Meditation is just clearing your mind, the rest is internal alchemy.

This statment is precisely why one should not learn meditation from the internet. This is a contrived an incorrect way of meditation that will not lead you to liberation.

Semantics, again you pursue the differences. Tell me what you actually know and have experienced or even realized that I may judge you in the same manner as you ASSUME to judge me. I will have more to go on though, because I will use questions and demand jakugo.

actually, you should be seeking guidance. the point of a teacher is precisely to stop you from thinking that whatever state you experience is so exalted that it can only be refuted by jakugo.

teknix wrote:There exists within a "spirit", "soul", and/or "awareness" that is part of essential nature of what it means to be human.

Which religion would deny that?

Buddhism.

Buddhism allows for "awareness", but not spirits or souls, which are very different - they are not, as you have them in your formulation, interchangeable. but the meaning of "awareness" (which is really just a catch-all English term that is applied to anything, these days) varies according to who is doing the translating. unless you're prepared to be quite specific about what YOU mean by it, then your claim is void.

you'd probably need help (such as that provided by an experienced teacher) to even figure out what "awareness" means in the context of your own practice, and more help (such as that provided by an experienced teacher) to try and experience that "awareness" directly, and help (such as that provided by an experienced teacher) to eliminate artifacts of your ignorance and avoid labeling them as progress, because there are a myriad ways to be wrong in this path.

some of them are spectacular to experience, even while remaining of no actual value - like, for example, whatever mental burps and farts arise while you're imagining that you're going to be moving some undefined "awareness" of yours "away from the mirror" and "into the void.

and then - if you did have some valid, transcendent experience - you'd likely need help (such as that provided by an experienced teacher) to understand what that meant i the context of the rest of your life, and how best it could be integrated.

so, yes. you probably need some guidance and it should be done by someone who is familiar with your own evasions and delusions and hidden desires, and who is not invested in them the way you are.

am i right in thinking you believe that the essential quality of an Arhat is that he "accepts Greed and Desire as part of his essential nature?

because....

"In Theravada Buddhism, it means anyone who has reached the total Awakening and attained Nirvana, including the Buddha. An arahant is a person who has destroyed greed, hatred, and delusion - the unwholesome roots which underlie all fetters - who upon decease will not be reborn in any world, having wholly cut off all fetters that bind a person to the samsara. In the Pali Canon, the word is sometimes used as a synonym for tathagata."

"In Theravada Buddhism the Buddha himself is first identified as an arahant, as are his enlightened followers, because they are free from all defilements, without greed, hatred, delusion, ignorance and craving, lacking "assets" which will lead to future birth, the arahant knows and sees the real here and now."

"Instead of aspiring for arhatship, Mahāyāna Buddhists are urged to instead take up the path of a bodhisattva, and to not fall back to the level of arhats and śrāvakas. Therefore, it is taught that an arhat must go on to become a bodhisattva eventually. If they fail to do so in the lifetime in which they reach the attainment, they will fall into a deep samādhi of emptiness, thence to be roused and taught the bodhisattva path, presumably when ready."

i include the last one to show that while Mahayana Buddhists regard the attainment of Arhat-ship as a stage, rather than an end, they don't define it any differently. so, as far as I can see, your definition of Arhat is totally set against Sravakayana and Mahayana Buddhism.

d

Yes, that was a misconception, thank you for elaborating. It has since been made clear, in an attempt to understand, that an Arhat is spawned within "emptiness" . There is no choice of greed or desires, or anything else that needs doing. It is permanent and irreversible perspective, caused by the teaching. Am I right to say there is no full realization of metta or anything thereafter for an Arhat?

I don't see how one could ever realize what nothing is without everything in contrast.

Is it right to say that an Arhat assumes nothing equivocates emptiness?

teknix wrote:Yes, that was a misconception, thank you for elaborating. It has since been made clear, in an attempt to understand, that an Arhat is spawned within "emptiness" . There is no choice of greed or desires, or anything else that needs doing. It is permanent and irreversible perspective, caused by the teaching. Am I right to say there is no full realization of metta or anything thereafter for an Arhat?

I don't see how one could ever realize what nothing is without everything in contrast. Is it right to say that an Arhat assumes nothing equivocates emptiness?

1.)

i think that the "spawned within emptiness" formulation is your own, not others' on this thread. the Buddha said again and again that he taught a cessation, not a spawning, and that's quite important. an arhat is not created by the practitioner, using some raw material of their own - an arhat is simply what happens to a person when certain things cease to function as they have. this is why the Buddha was so adamant that he taught a cessation.

2.)

as far as being an arhat goes, according to the teachings it is permanent and irrevocable, yes. but that is only when it is understood correctly as a cessation. here's why - because it is the cessation that is permanent and irrevocable, the arhat can go on to become a bodhisattva, or not. ceasing to be turned by greed and desire is not a hindrance to being a bodhisattva, it's an aid.

3.)

the question of whether there is a "full realization of Metta" thereafter has no bearing on whether the practitioner is an arhat or not. it turns on whether he practices to achieve that goal. an arhat can do so, and so can you.

4.)

lastly, i'm not sure that "realizing what nothing is" is a goal of Buddhist practice, and so i don't think you need to worry that you may need "everything in contrast" .

d

Last edited by daelm on Tue Feb 07, 2012 9:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

teknix wrote:I can't argue, because I have already intuited that an arhat must be determined within emptiness. To go even further I think that it is because of the teaching that this is so. There is no reason to be stuck there, unless in absoluteness. The absoluteness has been deduced to a wrong view, from this perspective. The reason for that is the altering views and "phenomena" have yet to be realized to be able to conclude anything about everything or nothing.

Your understanding of emptiness is not the same as buddhist understanding.

In buddhism, unlike others like Advaita Vedanta, "emptiness" is not "the void" or some kind of "the formless Absolute" or "pure consciousness". That is the I AM.

Instead, emptiness in Buddhism means no self (subjective self or agent) and no true existence of phenomena that dependently originates - a further insight after realizing anatta or no subjective self.

Do not misunderstand and confuse "emptiness" in Buddhism with that in the other religions.

I have been saying that emptiness is NOT void and IS NOT nothingness. Do not confuse the issue, If I said the opposite as you claim then please show me that I may see the typo. You can read what I wrote right here :

teknix wrote:Maybe we can forgo the mocking "high-fives" and "slap on the backs" for irrelevant critique. It is quite childish and conformist.

bothers you, though, doesn't it?

that's attachment. the "dharmic base" you asked for a definition of has quite a lot to say about ceasing attachment. seeing your own attachment, perhaps, maybe, to your views, and then seeing honestly your wounded pride when those views are not treated as magnificent by others, as they are by you, is an excellent way to practice.

you should definitely ask a teacher to help you uncover more and more of this kind of attachment.

"i think that the "spawned within emptiness" formulation is your own, not others' on this thread. the Buddha said again and again that he taught a cessation, not a spawning, and that's quite important. an arhat is not created by the practitioner, using some raw material of their own - an arhat is simply what happens to a person when certain things cease to function as they have. this is why the Buddha was so adamnat that he taught a cessation. "

Thank you. Yes spawned within emptiness is words that were written.

Can an Arhat can go on to become a Bodhi in his current life?

Would you elaborate upon cesation and how an Ahrat makes the journey to a Bodhi?

quite an authoritarian streak you have there. maybe you think that only people who suit your goals should be posting here. interestingly, that's an attachment to an outcome and it's making you suffer. it's also mixed in with an aversion - you'd prefer that responses you don't like vanished. that's also suffering. the Buddha had a lot to say about attraction and aversion and their relationship to suffering.

teknix wrote:I have been saying that emptiness is NOT void and IS NOT nothingness. Do not confuse the issue, If I said the opposite as you claim then please show me that I may see the typo. You can read what I wrote right here :

Ok but what I meant was that if you have right understanding of no self and emptiness, you cannot get "stuck" in it, so arhats do not get "stuck" in emptiness.

Because no self and emptiness is not an absolute, not a something, not a nothing, it just points to the absence of the true existence of a self without denying the experience of life or the appearances.

Yeah, those things are not absolutes. Nothing is an absolute though. There is an absolute nothingness, that disintegrates awareness into a oneness within it. It is like a bone piercing numbness, of nothing to do, nowhere to go, absolute, and irrevocable. This is a place within emptiness, yet no light may pierce it. Complete disintegration nearly occured, and would have had it not been for metta pulling me back. It was cupid that saved me. Which is why I will forever be on about metta coming before exploring the depths of emptiness.

Okay so we have established, from page 1, that your theory is leakier than a holey sieve. We've also established that you do not have/need a teacher since you know everything. We have also established that you know that you know and that we don't know (and we are bound by dogma).

So here comes the big one: if your realisation is not based on a teacher, is free from dogma (instruction and theory), exists everywhere and in everything then how can we learn it given you cannot teach it? How can we see this truth if it is not found anywhere but found everywhere? ie What is the method?

gregkavarnos wrote:Okay so we have established, from page 1, that your theory is leakier than a holey sieve. We've also established that you do not have/need a teacher since you know everything. We have also established that you know that you know and that we don't know (and we are bound by dogma).

So here comes the big one: if your realisation is not based on a teacher, is free from dogma (instruction and theory), exists everywhere and in everything then how can we learn it given you cannot teach it? How can we see this truth if it is not found anywhere but found everywhere? ie What is the method?

That was my intention before this thread was split from the OP. I will certainly help you if I can. I must first know more about what you know.